Hi everyone,

I need some help, please.

I have a 19" TFT monitor (native resolution is 1280x1024 and the aspect ratio is 5:4)

I have physically measured the monitor with a ruler and its aspect ratio is really 5:4

So, I understand that, in order to have the correct aspect ratio in games that were designed for 4:3 monitors, I must have two small black borders at the bottom and top of the screen.

But the black borders shown by DosBox are huge and the aspect ratio is totally off. I've changed many parameters of the configuration but I can't adjust the screen correctly.

This is very frustrating, please: could someone tell me how to configure dosbox to watch games with their proper aspect ratio?

I don't mind if the screen is blurred or not, I just want the correct aspect ratio!

Many thanks.
Regards.

Most DOS games doesn't use a 4:3 aspect ratio. They are 320x200 as in a 8:5 ratio, although displayed on a 4:3 monitor makes the pixel very "tall". And that's what it looked like. DOS games, by default, didn't have a standard aspect ratio and used "tall" pixels. So a stretch is needed to make it looks like it used to.

Anonymous wrote:

I don't mind if the screen is blurred or not, I just want the correct aspect ratio!

So read the Doc ... 😈

NORMALLY, In DosConf :

1Fullscreen=true
2Fulldouble=true
3Fullfixed=false
4...
5...
6aspect=true

It gives exactly what you wanted on my screen, hope it will be good for you too ...

Uh Forgot to log ... it's [Ben] 😅

Aaah! Thank you!

It was the "aspect=true" setting, I had it set to false 😊

By the way, if I set "fullfixed=false" I get a very tiny resolution centered in the monitor with enormous black borders around. I have to set it to "fullfixed=true" to get full screen.

Do you know why is this?

Cheers

Normally when fullfixed is on, you got the size of normal DosBox window (with the scale size you've put in Dosbox.conf, or scaler like hq2x will make a 640x400 window with graphical improvements) !
And when it's set to false, you get true fullscreen 😖 ... Anyway, it works, isn't it 😁 ?

Are you sure you mean hq3x? Wouldn't you be satisfied with no filtering at all or hq2x at most? What I'm saying is that hq filters are not required to solve this problem.

Scaling without adjusting the ratio should do the trick, even without filtering.

But I anderstand this problem, and I too think it should be fixed. Dosbox should be as independant as possible to advancing technologies. (platforms, crt/lcd...)

Screens on hp laptops tend to blur the screen on lower resolutions while my Thinkpad doesn't blur, but the image does look distorted.

I don't care about the blurring, but I do about the image being distorted.

But I believe ATI drivers have an option to keep the aspect ratio, maybe nvidia has this too.

So if you're lucky you can solve this problem on a hardware level.

But anyway, a software solution (for example the d3d patch) would be vary handy and is easier to manipulate.

I tried dos games on a few TFT and Laptop displays and it looks ok to me. Hell I got so used to it I bought my own 19" LCD! 🤣

I use scale2x and it looks good enough to me, not too much smoothing but enough to actually help some of the pixelation.

I've got a widescreen notebook (1280x800). I'm trying to figure out the best way to get games to not be blurry on it.

fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullfixed=true
fullresolution=1280x800
output=direct3d
hwscale=1.00
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt
pixelshader=point.fx

frameskip=2
aspect=true
scaler=none
hq2x_threshold_adaptive=75
hq2x_threshold=0

Aspect doesn't seem to do anything on or off. Fullfixed must be on if I don't select a scaler or I'll end up with no screen when TIE Fighter switches to high res.

The problem with the above settings is that when Tie Fighter switches to high res I end up with a squished image; big black bars on top and bottom but full width.